Sharpen Your Knife Skills

From dicing onions to tackling tomatoes, hone your skills and use the vegetables in a go-to Spanish sofrito.

BY JASON ROSS

Sometimes without even knowing what I am making for dinner, I nd myself dicing an onion. It is central to so many dishes that it is the place where dinner begins. With that in mind, let’s run through a little knife skills check-up for dicing a variety of vegetables you probably already have at home, including the onion. Then, use those sharpened knife skills to make Spanish sofrito, which is a avor base that, like the diced onion, is the rst step in so many meals. The next time you are not sure what’s for dinner, just start dicing and see what happens.

Make sofrito into your go-to avor base and use it to make meals all week long. This fragrant tomato-based blend of herbs, spices, and vegetables is used to season countless dishes. Add it to cooked beans with a little broth for more delicious beans. Add chicken and seafood to the rice recipe here and you have the basics of a classic paella, minus the sa ron. Any brothy soup would be improved with sofrito. Cook ground beef with sofrito and a little wine and water, and you have the makings of a great meat sauce. Or add roux and you might be inspired to make all types of gumbos. The uses for sofrito are long and plentiful. Who doesn’t like more avor?

Red Rice Flavored with Sofrito

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

Here is a recipe for flavorful red rice to show off all your knife skills. Start by making a sofrito base to flavor and color the rice. Then crank up the heat a little for a brown and crusty bite where the rice sticks to the pot.

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, diced small

2 cloves garlic, smashed and minced

1 rib celery, diced small

½ red pepper diced small

1½ teaspoons salt

2 medium tomatoes, diced small

1. Using a medium-sized pot with a tight-fitting lid, heat the oil on medium-low heat, and add the onions, garlic, celery, and red pepper. Sprinkle in the salt and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes stirring occasionally until the vegetables are softened, translucent, and just starting to brown. Look for

½ cup canned crushed tomatoes, with juice

1½ cups long grain white rice

2 cups water

½ tablespoon unsalted butter (optional) browning around the edges of the pan.

2. Add the tomatoes and cook for another 10 to 15 minutes, scraping up any brown bits stuck to the edges of the pan. Look for a jammy consistency with most of the liquid from the tomatoes cooked out and the edges of the pan starting to brown again.

3. Then add the crushed tomatoes and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until the tomato sauce shifts color from bright red to brick red, and the moisture in the sauce has mostly evaporated, thickening the sofrito.

4. After all the cooking, browning, and reducing, this is a good time to taste the sofrito and add salt if needed for your tastes. The sofrito can be made and stored in a covered container for up to 5 days in the refrigerator, or even made in larger batches and used for multiple preparations throughout the week.

5. Stir the rice into the sofrito and coat all the grains with sofrito. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook the rice stirring for 1 to 2 minutes until very lightly toasted and the pan has gotten hot.

6. Gently pour in the water and bring to a

Small Diced Vegetables

Here is a review of small dicing some common vegetables that you can use in a great variety of meals, and they are part of the recipe for sofrito used in the red rice. The focus here is small dice but you can use the same technique for any size: Small is ¼-inch dice; medium is ½-inch; and large is ¾-inch.

Onion

1. Using a chef’s knife, cut the onion in half from root to sprout end.

boil. Do not stir. This helps to get a little crust on the bottom of the pan. As it comes to a boil add the optional butter for a richer, slightly wetter feeling rice or omit for sharper flavor. Cover and lower heat to lowest setting. Cook for 20 minutes.

7. Turn off heat, and leave covered on the burner for another 10 minutes. Uncover and serve. Make sure to use a wood spoon and scrape off the crust, with a bit of crust for each guest.

8. The rice is best served immediately or kept warm in a rice cooker, slow cooker, or an oven set to 180°F and served within a few hours.

Nutrition (per serving without optional butter): Calories: 240, Fat: 5g (Sat: .5 g), Cholesterol: 0 mg, Sodium: 660 mg, Carb: 44g, Fiber: 3g, Sugar: 4g, Protein: 5g

2. With onion cut side down on a cutting board, trim off the sprout end (leave the root end intact) and peel the halves. The root end will keep the onion from splitting and falling apart and will be useful toward the end of cutting as a safe place to keep your fingers while you finish cutting.

3. Make 3 to 4 horizontal cuts, about ¼-inch apart, from the trimmed sprout end to the root end, stopping your cuts a little shy of the end, and not going all the way through, leaving the root end intact. Then make similar size cuts straight down to the cutting board from sprout end to root stopping a little shy of the root end.

4. Finally, make ¼-inch cuts across the grain of the onion and through the horizontal and vertical cuts. Use the root end as a resting place for your fingers as you get toward the end of your cuts. Then discard the root end after you are done with your dice.

Continued on page 8

Tomato

1. Use a paring knife to dig out the core of the tomato.

2. With a serrated knife, cut it into ¼-inch planks across the equator, like you were slicing tomatoes for a burger, then into ¼-inch strips, and then finally crosswise, into dice.

Tip: Wherever possible try to run your knife blade against the flesh of the tomato instead of the skin; it’s less likely to slip and will dig in more easily.

Celery

1. With a chef’s knife, make long slices all the way down the length of the stalk, roughly ¼-inch apart.

2. Then, simply cut across the grain and width of the celery, again ¼-inch cuts, to make small dice.

Garlic

Garlic can be done similarly to onions, but can also be handled in a less time consuming way with good results, especially in long cooking preparations like sofrito, where the garlic will essentially “melt.”

1. Use the flat side of your chef’s knife laid on top of a peeled garlic clove, (or even better use a vegetable cleaver if you have one), and with the palm of your hand give the flat knife against the garlic a good thwack, smashing the garlic into the cutting board. If that seems too aggressive or scary, you can also simply press down firmly into the flat knife, by using your body weight, and again flatten the garlic into your cutting board.

2. With a rocking motion, use the knife to mince the garlic into small pieces. This method is not as precise as a proper dice, but it is fast, fun, and effective.

Bell Pepper

1. Trim off the tops and bottoms of the peppers and scoop out the seeds and white pith.

2. Split the pepper in half lengthwise from stem-end to bottom and lay the two halves flat on the cutting board.

3. Cut into ¼-inch strips, and then across the strips into ¼-inch small dice. Give the trimmed tops and bottoms a rough dice, too. They won’t be as neat and tidy, but it’s best to use all the edible parts. n

Robin Asbell spreads the word about delicious whole, real foods through her work as an author, cooking teacher, and private chef. She is the author of “Plant-Based Meats,” “Great Bowls of Food,” “Big Vegan,” “Gluten-Free Pasta,” and more.

Terry Brennan is a photographer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Clients include Target, General Mills, Land O’Lakes, and Hormel. “Working with Real Food is a highlight—I love working with the creative team and, of course, sampling the wonderful recipes.”

Lara Miklasevics began her food career on the other side of the camera, cooking at the renowned New French Café in Minneapolis. Today her work as a stylist is in demand at corporations including Heinz, Target, and General Mills, as well as with many magazines. Her experience as a chef helps her make food as appealing on the page as it is on the plate.

Jason Ross is a chef consultant for restaurants and hotels, developing menus and concepts for multiple high profile properties. He grew up and trained in New York City but now calls St. Paul, Minnesota, home. He currently teaches the next generation of chefs at Saint Paul College Culinary School.

Quinton Skinner is the author of fiction and nonfiction books, as well as work in numerous national publications including Glamour, Experience Life, Huffington Post, Delta Sky, and American Theatre. He was senior editor of Minnesota Monthly and METRO magazine, and is the co-founder of Logosphere Storysmiths.

Molly Stevens is a cooking instructor and the author of several award-winning cookbooks, including “All About Dinner,” “All About Braising,” and “All About Roasting.” She has been named Cooking Teacher of the Year by both Bon Appétit and IACP. Her recipes and articles have appeared regularly in a number of national publications, and she is a cohost of the Everything Cookbooks podcast.